772–842
Liu Yuxi
劉禹錫
Read Liu Yuxi through historical cities, an autumn argument, a moonlit lake, and a love song whose weather carries a second meaning.
Liu Yuxi’s six readings here invite comparison between what lasts and what changes. Sometimes the difference is historical: birds and moonlight continue familiar movements after great households have gone. Sometimes it lies in the speaker’s judgment, as an autumn sky challenges an inherited expectation of sadness.
Places after their moment of power
Wuyi Lane follows swallows from the remembered halls of distinguished families into ordinary homes. It ends with people still living in the city. Read that distinction carefully: the loss of aristocratic grandeur is not the disappearance of all life.
Stone City gives the continuing movement to tide and moon. Thinking of the Past at Mount Xisai names a conquest and imagines its decisive objects before turning toward repeated human remembrance. Together, they show how the memory shelf can hold both unnamed change and a specific historical event.
A season need not mean one thing
Autumn Poem, I openly disputes the habit of grieving at autumn. A crane rising through the clouds gives the counterargument a shape. Compare Du Mu’s Mountain Walk, where red leaves prompt a preference for autumn without an opening debate.
In Looking at Lake Dongting, a vast view becomes small enough to imagine as a silver dish holding a green snail. The poem changes scale, rather than changing the actual size of the lake.
Listen twice
Bamboo-Branch Song, I uses the sound shared by 晴, clear weather, and 情, affection. The translated weather and the note about the pun work together; neither has to erase the other. This song also shows why a dramatic speaker should not automatically be identified with the author.
The dates above follow the Wikisource author record, which links the traditional biographies. Individual readings cite their Chinese sources and explain selected variants.
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